Cliopatria

• Oct 22, 2007
  

  The signers of the Declaration of Independence were "brave people, most of whom, by the way, were clergymen."

  by Cliopatria

  During the Republican debate, Mike Huckabee said he believes one of the defining issues facing the country is the sanctity of human life. Arguing that the issue is of historical importance, he invoked the Declaration of Independence's rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and said that most of the signers of the declaration were clergymen.
  
  Not even close.
  
  Only one of the 56 was an active clergyman, and that was John Witherspoon. Witherspoon was a Presbyte
  

• Oct 22, 2007
  

  Week of Oct. 22, 2007

  by Cliopatria

  Up Front

  History Buzz Bonnie Goodman

  News Abroad

  The Beginning of the End of the Facade of Russian Democracy Andreas Umland

  First Israel and Colombia, Now Sri Lanka and Pakistan Judith Apter Klinghoffer

  Vietnam and Iraq: The Benefits of Getting Out Hal Brands

  

• Oct 22, 2007
  

  Things Noted Here and There

  by Cliopatria

  Kristeen Steenbergh will host an early modern (ca 1500-1800 CE) edition of at Serendipities on Saturday 27 October. Send nominations of the best in early modern history blogging since 19 August to her at k.steenbergh* at*let*dot*vu*dot*nl or use

• Oct 21, 2007
  

  A Noble Proposal

  by Cliopatria

  There is certainly no shortage of outrage about James Watson's recent comments on race and intelligence. And rightfully so. As an Africanist who has also taught a fair number of African-American history surveys, I know that these particular toxic memes have survived all too long. More so, as the husband of an African Computer Scientist and as the father of two African-American children, I take it a bit personally, too.

• Oct 21, 2007
  

  Calling Historians of South Asia and Other Interested Parties

  by Cliopatria

  Via Sanjay Joshi comes this call for participation at the AHA 2008:
  

  
  This is to invite historians of South Asia to attend the inaugural meeting of the South Asia Caucus of the AHA on Friday, January 4, 2008 at 4:45 in Marriott Wardman Park (hdqtrs.), Room 8222 (lobby level). We hope this meeting will be the start of something new for the AHA and for historians of the region. We aim to make South Asian history more of a presence at the AHA by organizing regular South Asian

  

• Oct 21, 2007
  

  A Matter For Historians

  by Cliopatria

  Whether the massacres of up to 1.5 million Armenians in eastern Anatolia in 1915 constitute"genocide," as a nonbinding House resolution declares, is a matter for historians. ~The Wall Street Journal

  
  
  I have said before how tired I am of this sort of dodge. The purpose of these evasions is simply to declare the past irrelevant and
  

• Oct 21, 2007
  

  The Archive as Time Machine

  by Cliopatria

  [Cross-posted to Cliopatria & Digital History Hacks]
  
  Our story so far: even though we know that it's probably impossible, we've decided to think through the problem of building a time machine. In the last episode we decided that we wouldn't want one that allowed us to rewrite the past willy-nilly... because what would be the point of history then? It turned out, however, that
  

• Oct 20, 2007
  

  Verschoyle

  by Cliopatria

  [Further adventures in the world of Victorian anti-Catholicism...]

  Verschoyle: A Roman Catholic Tale of the Nineteenth Century (Hatchard, 1837) is not, despite its subtitle, a pro-Catholic novel.  Instead, it participates in the post-Emancipation angst of many early Victorian evangelicals, who saw the Catholic Emancipation Act (1829) as

  

• Oct 20, 2007
  

  Iowa's Diversity Test

  by Cliopatria

  It’s hardly fresh news to learn that most humanities and social sciences departments are politically one-sided. But the extent of and rationalizations for the one-sidedness should raise eyebrows.

  Below, Ralph mentioned the controversy over the decision by the University of Iowa’s History Department to exclude Mark Moyar from its list of initial interviewees for a position in the United States and world affairs. I’ve known Mark for a lo

  

• Oct 20, 2007
  

  The Problem with Stopped Clocks

  by Cliopatria

  
  
  Surprise, surprise: 25% of Germans think that there were"good sides" to the Third Reich (37% among the generation that grew up under the Third Reich, 15% for the next generation, and 20% among the young generation). It neatly parallels the rise of pro-fascists parties in recent elections
  
  It wo
  

• Oct 20, 2007
  

  Week of Oct. 15, 2007

  by Cliopatria

  #1 Rhodes Cook: Changing the way we elect presidents would have altered the outcome many times
  http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/43837.html
  
  #2 Roger Pulvers: Why elections in Japan are so different from the US variety
  http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/43731.html
  
  #3 Lawrence S. Wittner: Protest against the reliable replacement warhead
  

• Oct 19, 2007
  

  Where did WYSIWYG come from?

  by Cliopatria

  For those of us who grew up with Wordstar, an early and popular word processing program, as well as other software text editors, What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get text editing was a revelation.
  
  Seeing an Alto personal computer at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in 1979 or 1980 had that impact on me. For writers and researchers a paper-like screen was a huge leap into the world of the Office of the Future, even though it ultimately didn’t happen quite the way Xerox would have enjoyed.
  

• Oct 19, 2007
  

  Friday Notes

  by Cliopatria

  October's AHA Perspectives, anticipating January's convention, is online and AHA Today hits the highlights. The major piece they miss and the convention program will miss is that the Cliopatricians will gather for our Fifth Annual Banquet during January's convention. (Here are pictures from our

• Oct 18, 2007
  

  Week of Oct. 15, 2007

  by Cliopatria
• President Bush

  With all these pressing responsibilities one thing Congress should not be doing is sorting out the historical record of the Ottoman Empire.

• News story

  "This is a city [Chicago] that's afraid of its own history," says